Black Ops for Getting Published: Anthologies, or Fishing in the Barrel.

That's no typo, no words are missing. Submitting to an anthology is not "shooting fish in a barrel," it is more like "fishing in a barrel." There is still an element of chance when submitting your work, but the probability is tilted in your favor pending on the anthology. In some cases, you won't know what's in the barrel. It could be full of dead fish, or it could be filled with fish so starved they will bite a hook without bait. More often than not, the fish are biting, but as with anything dealing with a chance, there are no definites, only ways to tilt the numbers in your favor.

The most important part of getting published is acknowledging it is a numbers game. Constantly submitting your work to as many publications as possible is one way to tilt the odds. Another way that requires some creative flexibility on your part is submitting to anthologies. Genre or themed anthologies get a limited number of submissions. The weirder the subject matter sometimes the fewer submissions they receive, write that stuff and you're now "fishing in a barrel."


Of course, the good old Google search trick mentioned in "Black Ops for Getting Published: An Introduction to Beating the Numbers Game" works but you have to modify it like so:

Anthology site:submittable.com


My Google search is set to return 100 links per page, the first page got filled and there were four more little "o"s for additional pages to look at. I didn't go through all those pages, but I'm using this to show the vitality of the anthology market based strictly on its submittable presence.

Since I am a pros and cons kind of person, let me cover the cons first so you can see how they are outweighed by the pros.

Cons:

Time. When writing for an anthology you have to make the deadline and write a story that matches the theme. If you ever wondered what being a professional writer is all about, well this is what it feels like. You have a story and a deadline in which to write it, and if you don't jump through all the hoops correctly, you don't get paid. The difference is, with the anthology market you're working on the possibility of getting published as opposed to receiving a paycheck upon completion. If you're a writer, a real honest-to-Satan, true-to-heart writer, you have to understand starting out you might not get paid. The big con with writing for an anthology is it is an investment of your time with no guarantee of money. Kind of sounds like the same thing as if you wrote a fiction story and then looked for a magazine to send it to, doesn't it? (But it's not.)



Pros:

A Finite Timeline for Rejection. Upstanding anthologies typically have a timeline for when they will be published. This means even if they forgot to update their submittable page or send you a rejection letter, you will know in a finite amount of time if you made the cut.

Creative Exercise. Writing a steampunk story set in ancient Egypt works your creative muscles and that is a benefit in and of itself.

Better Odds. Not everyone can write using prompts like "Christian romance," "the 24 hours before the world ends," or "steampunk set in ancient Egypt." If you are one of these people, you can submit with a higher probability of being accepted. When most writers consider submitting to anthologies they often think, "Do I have any stories that match their needs," not "Yeah, I can write a story about that." Therefore you have a reduction in the number of competitors, making it easier to get an acceptance. Remember, you don't have to be number one, you just have to "place.”

If you're scoffing at this, saying, "Oh man, I can't write a story where someone tells me the theme," then skip to the links at the bottom and look at some of the prompts for anthology submissions. You might be surprised. Some of them might give you ideas or be things you’d want to write about. Then, of course, come back here and finish reading my post.

It Sounds "Good." I don't know why, but some people are impressed by the phrase, "I've been published in a few anthologies." Being published in an anthology means you are part of a very small club and that carries a wee bit of prestige. It ain't easy getting published, but submissions to magazines are ongoing, anthologies are a one-time deal.

New Talent and Old. While getting published in "The Atlantic," "Clark's World," or "The New Yorker" can make a career, few magazines are willing to publish new and unheard-of authors. Often Anthologies are cool about this. So you might be able to get published with your name next to an author whose work you love.

The Part Two. This very rarely happens, but some anthologies do so well that they have sequels, the "Hot Blood" series got to part 10 when I stopped counting. If you don't make it into part one there is an outside chance you might get the invitation for part two.

If you don't know what an anthology is, click this link to buy one and find out:

https://www.amazon.com/Corpses-Things-Horror-Anthology-Anthologies/dp/1539494179

Payment. I've noticed a trend that most anthologies offer a token payment, a percentage of residual sales or payment per word, as opposed to the hundreds of online magazines that offer little or no money. This is not the case with every anthology, but I've noticed a decent percentage of paying anthologies but haven't really counted (If you want something fun to do, start searching and counting.)

Amazon.com. If you get accepted into an anthology and it is published on Amazon.com, you can link the book's sale page to your Amazon.com author profile which gives you a bit more web presence and may help turn readers on to your other works.

Feedback. Because most magazines receive such a high number of submissions, they seldom give notes when rejecting a story and use form letters. While not all feedback may feel so great, take it with a grain of salt and remember what that editor did or didn't like about your story. The publishing world, despite the indie explosion, is still small and you'll run into the same people again and again. So the next time you see that editor's name attached to a magazine or another anthology you'll know what they are looking for.

A New Story. When submitting to an anthology it is best that you do not multi-submit being that your odds are better than if you sent to magazines. At The Girnder I've seen acceptance rates as high as 19% for anthologies. That's a pretty good chance of getting published vs. most magazines that hover between a 1% - 5% acceptance rate. After writing and submitting your poetry, flash fiction, or short story (most likely under 5000 words,) it now gets tied up for a few months. So what? If your story gets rejected send it elsewhere. If the anthology series was a hit, other publishers might look to jump on the bandwagon and you now have a product they need. Likewise, you now have a story to put through the magazine submission wringer.


The pros clearly outweigh the cons when it comes to writing and submitting to anthologies. There are a few things to look out for, and unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way. Here is what to avoid or some clues to send your story elsewhere:

Changing Dates. If the time frame for the anthology to be published changes, or the dates to give notification of story acceptance changes, consider submitting your work elsewhere. Before doing this, query the editor asking why the dates changed. Sometimes this is because they have not received enough submissions and they will send you a contract in need of the story. On the other hand, if they don't give you a straight answer, change the date to announce notification of acceptance or change the date of when the anthology should be published numerous times, and start subbing to magazines.

No Contracts. If you are accepted into an anthology be sure they send you a contract and READ IT! If no contract is sent and they publish your story, and they copyrighted it as theirs, you now have huge problems. Wouldn’t it be terrible if somebody wanted to make a movie out of your short story and couldn't because it was tied up in litigation because years ago some rinky-dink publishing house perpetuated some skeevy ass bullshit?

However, if the publisher is small, say one person, and is wet behind the ears, you can write your own contract*. The best way to handle this is to have a lawyer write the contract for you, which is costly. Do your homework, remember, in the long run, this could be your livelihood you are messing with. Many a short story has been turned into a Hollywood blockbuster.


A solid portion of the anthology market is made up of genre fiction and a good writer you can write anything, right? Beyond the hit-and-run Google/submittable search trick here are a few pages listing anthologies looking for subs. Most of these are genre-oriented:

Sci-fi:
http://ralan.com/m.antho.htm

Horror/Sci-fi/Other:
http://www.darkmarkets.com/

All genre, inc. "fiction":

http://www.angiebenedetti.com/blog/category/anthology-market-listings/

"All" but horror/Sci-fi heavy:

http://writingcareer.com/call-for-anthology-submissions

All genre, inc. "fiction":

http://www.aswiebe.com/writing/markets.html

*I am not a lawyer nor do I claim to be a legal expert or an expert on copyright law. I recommend speaking with an attorney regarding any legal matters. And that is how I didn't get sued when you goofed writing your own damned contract.

Black Ops for Getting Published: An Introduction to Beating the Numbers Game.

Beating the Numbers Game: Using Google to Access Submittable.

There are tons of books on the subject of getting published. Content wise they are often 90% about craft and 10% about the subject of getting into "print." I use quotes because the internet is not print, but there are paying gigs there. The reason these books are 90/10 split are the actions that will get you published are minimal --it's doing a lot of the same stuff over and over. A lot of those books end with “get an agent.” So let me drop few gems to make subbing easier while avoiding the term "craft."

I'm assuming you know how to write a snazzy story/book blurb that will hook an editor, a bio that is interesting, and you know how to format a manuscript. I have a link to a sample of how to format a manuscript at the bottom. Before you use it, make sure that is the format the publisher wants.

Once you have learned some craft, written a dozen or so stories, developed your own style and voice, and maybe read a few books on the craft of writing, you might be ready to submit a few of your stories, not that any of those things matter if you want to be published. What matters is understanding it is a numbers game. By the time you are done reading this post, you'll be sick of the phrase "numbers game." 

What a kick in the ass after getting a BFA in creative writing huh?

Are you more or less just playing roulette? Hell no, the odds of winning roulette are 1/37, the odds of getting published are 1/100. I'm not being sarcastic in writing that. Most publishers and magazines have an acceptance rate of 1%. Too bleak? There are some magazines with odds as high as 1/20 or a 5% acceptance rate. Some magazines go a little higher. Why get your hopes up?

The importance of those numbers is that they are “numbers.” This is a numbers game, and you have to accept that. All things being equal,* all you need to do to beat a numbers game is to never stop playing. On an infinite timeline, every probability will be exhausted, and that is what you need to do. The bad news is the odds are slim, the good news is: submit enough times and you will be published. This is a battle of attrition, you just need to outlast the rejections to win.

Between the internet, anthologies, and working as a ghostwriter, I've lost count of the number of times I've been published. However, I have saved my rejection e-mails and letters. Those rejections are closing in on 500 as of writing this. 

Many magazines have a “no multiple submissions” policy. Meaning they do not want you to submit your work elsewhere. If you have to wait 6 months for a rejection from them, it puts a dent in your "infinite " timeline. To undent your timeline there is Submittable. Submittable.com is a website that works as a submission manager. It also has a “withdraw” option, so if you submit your story to 30 magazines and one of them takes it, you can then cancel your other submissions.

The catch is, the magazine has to choose to use submittable. If they aren't registered with the service don't ask. 

Submittable allows you to save your cover letter, contact info, etc. All you have to do is upload your story. The catch with Submittable is they are not that great at telling you what magazines use them.

The typical way you find out if a magazine uses Submittable is you go to the magazine’s website and click on its submission page. Next, you click another link taking you to their submittable page.

Since submittable saves you so much time, wouldn’t it be nice if you could just get a list of who uses submittable? Here is how to do that, Google search this:

“Horror” 5000 words site:submittable.com

I get not everyone is talented enough to be a horror writer such as myself (the "literary fiction" people just laughed at that,) so here is a template to use:

“Genre” total words** site:submittable.com

You should get a list of magazine’s names, the words “submission manager,” and under that be sure to check the URL for “submittable,” and a description of word count and what they want, for example:

Dark Moon Digest Submission Manager - Short Stories

https://darkmoondigest.submittable.com/submit/21846/short-stories

Your horror short story must be previously unpublished in any format. ... submissions should be a minimum of 1500 words and should not exceed 5,000 words.

These are direct links to Submittable pages. Open a bunch of those in new tabs, and submit in bulk. Even if your search returns only five pages, once you have set everything up in submittable you will be able to submit a piece in 1 – 2 minutes. This saves a lot of time versus searching out individual sites and then imputing your information from scratch for each one.

Because Submittable has a “withdraw” feature, you just have to make sure to stay on top of your submissions for when you get accepted somewhere.

A Numbers Game. A Numbers Game. A Numbers Game. 

When you submit to a magazine your chances of being published are 1/100. When you submit to two magazines your odds are now 2/100 or 1/50. 1/50 is still bleak right, so why not do something about it?

After ten submissions your chances start looking “possible” 1/10. When you get to 20 to 25 submissions things are looking “good” with 1/5 and 1/4 odds. Getting published the first time is the hardest. To get my first short story published I was rejected 80 times before I got an acceptance. That was back in the days before the internet --so that was 80 stamps and envelopes.

Rejection hurts at first, but after a while, you stop getting form letters and you get rejections where they complement your work and ask you to send more, that's when you know you're close. In the internet age when everything happens “right away,” the publishing world has not caught up, nothing happens overnight. Be patient and remember: every "no" is one "no" closer to a "yes."

*By “equal,” I mean you know all the “style” and “craft” stuff. You have jumped through all the hoops and you are subbing a manuscript that looks professional and is in the correct format, story, and genre. By genre, I mean you do not send a manuscript about a lost kitten finding its way home to a splatterpunk magazine. That is unless the kitten is gang fucked and ripped to pieces by rabid chipmunks at the end.

**When you type in your total words, be sure to round up to the nearest thousand or nearest hundred if you are subbing flash fiction. I have yet to come across a publisher looking for a word count between 465 and 9115 words. 

If you want to publish a novella or a novel and your search returns slim Pickens, try replacing the word count with “novella” or “novel.”

Manuscript format:

http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html

Publication statistics:

http://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/

https://duotrope.com/

Elements of Wild Style: Adverbs and Adjectives.

I’d figure I’d start off with the “greatest hits” of things I see new writers do that vex editors. The all the time "greatest hit," I see is adverbs and adjectives and the overuse of them. They are the ink of the poison pen. Edit them out, do it and you're left with meat and potato noun and verbs sentences that go bang.

What are Adjectives?

An adjective is a word that describes a thing. They shortcut using a solid description. I like the word “beautiful,” I overuse it, but it was overused --even before I overused it. Now, I kill it out of my writing, but let me show you why. This is how adjectives weaken sentences:

With her beautiful face and body, she seduced me.

Yeah, I’m preying on a weak sentence here, but I’m trying to make a point. Seduced, without beauty:

Her hazel eyes took you to a movie where she was the star. With her runway model face, porn star body, and the elegance of a 1950’s matinée ingénue, she had me.

Adjectives allude to “lazy writing.” When you describe settings or characters or even the possessions of your characters using adjectives you are short-changing the reader.

Barry's 1970 Hemi Cuda was in glorious condition.

Okay, you get the idea that Barry’s car is in “glorious condition,” but above we don’t know about Barry or his passion for the vehicle because of that "glorious" adjective, check it:

Barry simonized the 1970 Hemi Cuda’s custom paint job to a shine of flowing reflections.

Here you got Barry taking the time to polish the car to a shine vs. it looking "glorious" whatever that means. Adjectives suck the punch out of your writing. If you are struggling to figure out if something is an adjective here are some helpers:

They interact with nouns. They “describe a thing” and while you might be thinking “minimal” or “fewer words” you’re right, but not in a good way. Adjectives steal the opportunity for poetry in your prose and make you look lazy as a writer. Lazy writers defend this stuff tooth and nail.

Use a simile, metaphor, or any kind of analogy, you know, write.

Adjectives are the Common Cold and Adverbs are Ebola 

Adverbs will fuck you in the ass. Some editors reject on the basis of adverbs sight on seen. Is this censorship? Is this bigotry? Is this fair? Is this a hindrance to your creativity?

Before whining about the elements of your style think about what writing is. Writing is taking ideas and giving them phonetic symbols others can understand. What happens when the idea lacks clarity? Or the idea is exaggerated? Adverbs are words that fuck with clarity and proportion. They are defined as “a word or phrase that modifies verbs, adjectives, other adverbs --and suck beyond sucking” and they set you up for a one-way ticket to rejection town. 

A shitty sentence with just an adjective :

The fish was big.

The same sentence made shittier with an adverb:

The fish was very big.

Why is this shittier? Because there is no idea of proportion and there is no clarity to the exaggerated “big” done by the “very.” The fish could be very big for a minnow. Who the fuck knows? And then what is big for a minnow? To be clear, if we make our fish into minnows, these two sentences still suck:

The minnow was big. 

The minnow was very big.

But…

The minnow stretched the length of Barry's Hemi Cuda.

There is a string of nouns letting you know how big your bait fish is.

“Very” is not your common POS adverb, most adverbs end in “ly.” Starting out, many of us are guilty of some shit like this –and I know my horror writer friends have written sentences like this in their first stories:*

He walked quietly, softly, gently touching his feet to the floor.

In college English classes all over the US, professors train editor wannabes to replace all words ending in “ly” with the adverb shittly. This is not just a conspiracy theory, I may have dropped out of those classes, but I was there for that. I can tell you, this is real or at least a real conspiracy theory. The only thing an editor worth their salt is going to read when they see a sentence like the one above is:

He walked shittly, shittly, shittly touching his feet to the floor.

Then the editor will reject you for writing a sentence using shittly three times in a row. The reality is adverbs undo impact, and turn lean sentences into melodramatic, redundant crap-o-la:

He brooded.

          Vs.

He anxiously brooded.

Brood means to agonize, worry, fret, etc. Anxious means the same thing, tagging a “ly” at the end of "anxious " and sticking it in front of "brooded" makes the reader do twice the work for the same payoff. And that is Writing Shittly 101 for you.

It’s redundant, and not in the “setting a minimalist rhythm” form of redundancy, but the boring kind of redundancy. Even if you think you're J.D. Salinger and being slick like this:

Maxine uncrossed and crossed her legs, a threatening gesture that filled Harrison with the need to act obsequiously. This earned him penalty points from her parents who could only quietly love their daughter on very sophisticated terms. They all had way too much wine.

Now Mr. I-Hate-Genre-Fiction who thought his story about college kids at home from Choate for a weekend with the alcoholics would get published in “The Atlantic” or “The New Yorker,”  let me show what the editor reads:

Maxine uncrossed and crossed her legs, a threatening gesture that filled Harrison with the need to act shittly. This earned him penalty points from her parents who could shittly shittly love their daughter on shittly sophisticated terms. They all had way shittly much wine.

Use your word processor's search feature for "ly" and get that shit out of your writing, then google “adverbs that don’t end in ly,” get a list of those and get rid of them, replace them, do whatever you need to, but no more writing shittly. Okay? 

I like you and want better for you. 

After all my hateful propaganda toward adverbs and adjectives, guess what? There is a time and place for them. Which is in dialogue.

“Dude, he’s really huge.”
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“One of his gigantically fat legs is bigger then your whole body.”
“At least I can quickly outrun him and maybe wear him down.” She cocked her head.
“Only if he chases you.”

You still don’t want to go crazy with them like I did above. Editors have been beaten and traumatized to hate adverbs and adjectives, and when you see how they weaken writing it's kind of hard not to hate them as a writer. One place where adverbs do work is in children’s dialogue.

“So Denis, how big was the dinosaur?”
“He was very very big.”

Another place some of this can be skirted is in 1^st person narrative, but you have to be careful if you are going to use adverbs there, adjectives are okay-ish, but you’re still short-changing the reader. This is a risk that I wouldn’t recommend. I get it, not everyone in the world is a poet, and if your characters aren’t poets maybe their narrative should at least reflect that? My best answer is to use what your character relates to for metaphors and analogy and the poetry of your prose doesn’t have to be “pretty,” or exist even. With adverbs, adjectives, and simple:

I met Drake at the dog track he was a really sleazy guy.

This is with no “poetry” to it, but it shows you everything you need to know about Drake:

I met Drake at the dog track. He wore a white suit, black greased back hair and five gold chains over his dollar bill patterened tie. He picked at his teeth with his fingernail.

With just a little bit of “spin” on it:

When I met Drake, he was picking his teeth with his pinky fingernail. He donned the garb native to the dog track. His duck suit contrasted his slicked back hair glinting in the sun as did his gold chains resting over his dollar bill patterned tie. He might not be the chief, but this was his tribe.

Even when writing in 1^st person, I wouldn’t go apeshit with adverbs and adjectives, in most writing books they say something like 1 adverb for every 5,000 words of non-dialogue. I don’t know how a number like that is made up, but I’d roll with it. Even in dialogue, adverbs and adjectives don’t always help. If you’re writing a horror story which of these is “scary?”

“Get the fuck out of the water. I see a really big minnow.”

Or:

“Get the fuck out of the water. I see a minnow the size of a car.”

Granted both examples are stiff, but I’d be afraid of the fifteen-foot-long minnow over the seven-inch minnow, but that’s just me.

On a final note: Adjectives and adverbs are imprecise and fuzzy and allow for interpretation and loopholes. Watch a modern politician's speech and count the number of times they use them. The bigger the politicians the more they use them.

More stuff that might help you:

http://www.hemingwayapp.com/

^ Won’t get adjectives but it will get adverbs. When in doubt:

http://parts-of-speech.info/

*A simile is when you use “like” or “as.” “His breath was like chemical warfare."
** I know because I did.